I just got one of those dreaded messages from my son

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
They say there are only 2 things that can make a good person do a bad thing; religion, and addiction.
I would add "ignorance".

But it doesn't have to be forever.
It is always possible to move in a different direction than you are going now. Not necessarily a 180 degree turn. But a change, however small, for better or for worse. Those who are "good people" doing "good things" are in that same place. Every day, we have to make choices. And those choices are the stepping stones of tomorrow.
 

DarkwingPsyduck

Active Member
I would add "ignorance".


It is always possible to move in a different direction than you are going now. Not necessarily a 180 degree turn. But a change, however small, for better or for worse. Those who are "good people" doing "good things" are in that same place. Every day, we have to make choices. And those choices are the stepping stones of tomorrow.

Dunno about ignorance, at least in this case. We aren't dumb. We know we are doing wrong. Doing bad things. Even IF ignorance was a good enough excuse, it doesn't really apply to us.

The argument could also be made that ignorance is a result of religion or addiction. Or their cause.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Example:
My challenging kid has a major problem with school, long story, won't go into that part here. He has had some truly bad teachers. And some stellar ones. If a stellar teacher does not understand or even know that there exists a problem with "auditory figure ground", that teacher may treat the child as though they have an attention problem, or they are not trying. Both assumptions would be wrong, and choices and decisions based on those assumptions would be wrong, and the outcome was wrong. It wasn't done because of "religion", nor because of "addiction". But the impact on my child was immeasurably tragic. Out of ignorance.

You don't have to be "stupid" or "dumb" to be ignorant. You just have to lose your curiosity and drive to learn, that key inquisitiveness that drives you when things don't add up. When you stop learning, you become ignorant.
 

Tanya M

Living with an attitude of gratitude
Staff member
My son has a very high IQ. He is able to read a book and retain all the information yet he doesn't temper his intellect with humility. He is very arrogant and is unwilling to "listen" to what others have to say. His arrogance can make him ignorant.
 

DarkwingPsyduck

Active Member
Example:
My challenging kid has a major problem with school, long story, won't go into that part here. He has had some truly bad teachers. And some stellar ones. If a stellar teacher does not understand or even know that there exists a problem with "auditory figure ground", that teacher may treat the child as though they have an attention problem, or they are not trying. Both assumptions would be wrong, and choices and decisions based on those assumptions would be wrong, and the outcome was wrong. It wasn't done because of "religion", nor because of "addiction". But the impact on my child was immeasurably tragic. Out of ignorance.

You don't have to be "stupid" or "dumb" to be ignorant. You just have to lose your curiosity and drive to learn, that key inquisitiveness that drives you when things don't add up. When you stop learning, you become ignorant.

No, I get what you're saying completely. And I agree.
 

DarkwingPsyduck

Active Member
My son has a very high IQ. He is able to read a book and retain all the information yet he doesn't temper his intellect with humility. He is very arrogant and is unwilling to "listen" to what others have to say. His arrogance can make him ignorant.

It is impossible to put more liquid into a glass that is already full. When an addict already "gets it", after demonstrating NOT to actually "get it", they cannot be open to something different, possibly more effective. We have all fallen into this trap. I ALWAYS "got it". Until I didn't. It was only after accepting that I don't "get it", as demonstrated with all past attempts, that I was willing to listen, learn, and try something new.
 

Tanya M

Living with an attitude of gratitude
Staff member
My son has had periods of being "sober". He spent 2 years in prison. During that time he was clean and sober, he also read many books. When he was released he told me that his life was going to be different, that he was going to get a job and get his life on track.
He got a decent job making good money, however, after three months he quit. When I asked him why he told me it was because the owner was stupid and did not know how to run a business. The owner has had the same successful business for 25 years! He obviously knows what he is doing. Just because my son read some books on business does not mean he knows how to run one. Again, his arrogance makes him ignorant.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Just because my son read some books on business does not mean he knows how to run one. Again, his arrogance makes him ignorant.
My son has been like this too. He still can be. In fact, it is his most preferred track. It is his default, so to speak. Except that now I believe he is seeing, in moments, how much this costs him. We distrust him. We are angry. We feel victimized. I am deeply hurt. He sees this.

I think he is worried that my distress might kill me or make me sick. It is sad it has to get so bad, but this idea that I am a real person with real vulnerability--a person he loves and needs--and he is hurting me and our relationship and himself through his spiritual laziness--just now seems to have occurred to him.

For some reason, he is being able to see his foolishness sometimes, and acknowledge it to us and to himself. And this is leading to some behavior change.

Tanya. It sounds like your son may be going through something similar. Seeing that he is the emperor with no clothes. At least getting a glimpse. There has to be a reason for that fable. Maybe there have been difficult children throughout the ages.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
People are not born a blank slate like once was a popular, wrong theory. After I gave birth to my son I remember looking in the nursery at how different each baby was. Some slept. Some were looking around with fists waving and legs kicking. Some were just serene snd quiet. I think our inborn temperment drives us, and usually should not be judged as good or bad.
Those of us with more than one kid know that one child may be content to draw and read for hours. Another may be outside riding his bike to find friends to play with. Another is so sensitive, you look at her wrong and she cries. Another may be obstinate and buck your rules.
I think impulsive, high strung kids crave more stimulation to feel alive and that thus can cause a young, bored middle schooler to seek out risktaking friends who may dare him to, say, shoplift. A calm content kid would probably not give into that sort of drama, but a risk taker may feel a rush of excitement. I have one kid who was known as the master of shoplifting. He was never caught and I only found out a few years ago. Yikes! This child was always drawn to mischief and liked attention.
Add inborn personality to other factors that can cause problems (divorce, adoption isdues, puberty, being bullied, school struggles, bigotry, the list is endless...the teen decides which peers or life suits him best. Unhappy people tend to make worse choices in their quest to find acceptance and to express their world view that "it sukks."
Sometimes achieving kids newly feel left out at college so it starts there.
There are infinite reasons for making good, bad and neutral choices. Everyone is different. Our temperment, our upbringing, our genetics, our life experience, everything sets the table. Its not just about us as parents unless we were abusive. Its everything.
I was a rebel who thought "everything sukks." I was also timid and NOT a risktaker. That seperated me ftom the risk takers. I was terrified of mind altering drugs. It saved me. This one thing...fear.
I feel its best not to over analyze "why" and not blame ourselves and focus mostly on the present....what it is.
We love our kids, but we all see the world differently, even parent and beloved kid. We are limited as to what we can do to influence our grown kids. We are not them. They are not us. It seems unfair when we first hold that baby. We have our hopes and dreams, but the baby is not sharing our dreams and will do things his way.
Whew! Not sure why I felt the need to vent.
Have a great day everyone.
 

Tanya M

Living with an attitude of gratitude
Staff member
It seems unfair when we first hold that baby. We have our hopes and dreams, but the baby is not sharing our dreams and will do things his way.
Well said SWOT. Until we, as parents can accept this truth we cannot let go and detach. It took me a long time to accept that my son's life choices are his. I don't like the way has chosen to live but I do accept it.
I will always have hope that he will make better choices for himself so that his life will not be drenched in chaos but I also temper that with reality. It is what it is.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
When my son was actively addicted, his personality changed, too. I hid from that for the longest time. It helped me very much to learn, from reading here, that these kinds of behavior changes are part of what happens when we find ourselves addicted. I am so grateful for this site, and for the support I found here.

I read recently that addiction has to do with the depletion of dopamine. When we use mind-altering substances, the high actually comes from the increased concentration of dopamine, a chemical neurotransmitter our own bodies manufacture. This is what accounts for the good, good feelings that happen when we first begin using any addictive substance. (This is a simplified version of what I read.) Because our survival is at stake when the chemicals in our brains are altered ~ we don't feel as anxious, we don't worry about predators and such, we believe ourselves more capable than we are, that kind of thing ~ the brain not only does not make as much dopamine, but shuts down a number of our dopamine receptors in an effort to come back into balance.

That is what creates the addiction.

Over time, as the brain shuts down more dopamine receptors, those addicted can develop anhedonia, which is the inability to feel pleasure.

So, when those we love are using any kind of addictive substance, they really are not themselves. It helped me to know this. It helped me to detach from my own emotions about what was happening to all of us because of the addiction. Because I knew this information, I was able to give myself permission to work on feeling less guilty or responsible or ashamed of myself at what was happening to my child, and to all of us.

Your son does love you, Tanya. He loves himself too, as best he is able. But when the kids are operating from altered brain chemistries, they can't make good sense of what is happening to them. I think their anger at us has to do with their disappointment in themselves. How awful it must be, for them.

So...how do we maintain a steady emotional state, or an acceptable level of self regard, when our children are in such trouble?

That was the question, for me. I could not, as it turned out, undo what had happened to my son. Not that I didn't try. It was crazy, the amount of trying I did. In the end, even I came to that place where I didn't have anything more to try.

Huh.

So, I supposed the next best thing would be to become as healthy as I knew to be. So that if he did come back (and he did ~ he is, now, coming back nicely, I think) then...I would still love him. And would still love myself too, and not be all bound up in resentment and shame and etc.

Or bitterness, for what was lost.

Knowing about that dopamine connection helps me very much. I don't know whether it was guilt or shame or what, but part of the hurt for me in what happened to my son is that he felt like a stranger to me. Like some person who resembled my son, but wasn't anything like my son. That I loved. There was no way to grieve what I'd lost, because that grown man who looked like my real son was always showing up demanding money and cars and etc.

And telling me what a crummy mother and grandmother I was.

He did not post those things publicly on Facebook. But he did post some really crummy things to me in private.

It hurt me very much.

I am sorry that happened to you, Tanya.

My daughter once posted a link to a site for Daughters of Narcissistic mothers to my Facebook page.

Ahem.

Cedar
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
We love our kids, but we all see the world differently, even parent and beloved kid. We are limited as to what we can do to influence our grown kids. We are not them. They are not us. It seems unfair when we first hold that baby. We have our hopes and dreams, but the baby is not sharing our dreams and will do things his way.
If there is a shared developmental challenge that each of us here on CD shares it is this: the necessity to separate from our now grown children.

There is something about the maternal bond that includes the belief or fantasy that the infant actually remains part of us *even the adopted baby, even though she or he is now clearly separate and beyond our control. I believe that it is biologically transmitted and underlies the maternal instinct. Mothers who feel this way are more apt to protect their children and to be highly invested in them.

It works until it stops working and becomes detrimental to the relationship. The now adult or near adult child bucks it--fights the mother now to get clear of her. And the now distraught mother, believing still, that she is responsible, keeps re-asserting the same behaviors that had fueled her--and gets bashed.

This is a developmental challenge to each of us. How to rescue or regain control of our own identities, as separate from that as a mother of a difficult child. Because it is clear that our children are battling us to claim their identities as completely their own, and they are winning.

Our need now is to learn that we no longer have control. We no longer have a vote, on what they do or who they are. Which is completely contrary to the imperative of the maternal instinct which drove us 18 or 20 or 25 years before.

It is tough, I tell you, but not nearly as tough as it was before I found this site.
 
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DarkwingPsyduck

Active Member
When my son was actively addicted, his personality changed, too. I hid from that for the longest time. It helped me very much to learn, from reading here, that these kinds of behavior changes are part of what happens when we find ourselves addicted. I am so grateful for this site, and for the support I found here.

I read recently that addiction has to do with the depletion of dopamine. When we use mind-altering substances, the high actually comes from the increased concentration of dopamine, a chemical neurotransmitter our own bodies manufacture. This is what accounts for the good, good feelings that happen when we first begin using any addictive substance. (This is a simplified version of what I read.) Because our survival is at stake when the chemicals in our brains are altered ~ we don't feel as anxious, we don't worry about predators and such, we believe ourselves more capable than we are, that kind of thing ~ the brain not only does not make as much dopamine, but shuts down a number of our dopamine receptors in an effort to come back into balance.

That is what creates the addiction.

Over time, as the brain shuts down more dopamine receptors, those addicted can develop anhedonia, which is the inability to feel pleasure.

So, when those we love are using any kind of addictive substance, they really are not themselves. It helped me to know this. It helped me to detach from my own emotions about what was happening to all of us because of the addiction. Because I knew this information, I was able to give myself permission to work on feeling less guilty or responsible or ashamed of myself at what was happening to my child, and to all of us.

Your son does love you, Tanya. He loves himself too, as best he is able. But when the kids are operating from altered brain chemistries, they can't make good sense of what is happening to them. I think their anger at us has to do with their disappointment in themselves. How awful it must be, for them.

So...how do we maintain a steady emotional state, or an acceptable level of self regard, when our children are in such trouble?

That was the question, for me. I could not, as it turned out, undo what had happened to my son. Not that I didn't try. It was crazy, the amount of trying I did. In the end, even I came to that place where I didn't have anything more to try.

Huh.

So, I supposed the next best thing would be to become as healthy as I knew to be. So that if he did come back (and he did ~ he is, now, coming back nicely, I think) then...I would still love him. And would still love myself too, and not be all bound up in resentment and shame and etc.

Or bitterness, for what was lost.

Knowing about that dopamine connection helps me very much. I don't know whether it was guilt or shame or what, but part of the hurt for me in what happened to my son is that he felt like a stranger to me. Like some person who resembled my son, but wasn't anything like my son. That I loved. There was no way to grieve what I'd lost, because that grown man who looked like my real son was always showing up demanding money and cars and etc.

And telling me what a crummy mother and grandmother I was.

He did not post those things publicly on Facebook. But he did post some really crummy things to me in private.

It hurt me very much.

I am sorry that happened to you, Tanya.

My daughter once posted a link to a site for Daughters of Narcissistic mothers to my Facebook page.

Ahem.

Cedar

A byproduct of substance abuse is chemical imbalance. Chemical imbalance is also the cause for many mental disorders. SSRI's exist to correct such imbalances. With opiates, withdrawal is a result of low endorphin production. Opiates push the brain to produce much more than normal. After extended, heave use, the brain realizes that it doesn't need to produce it's own, as the drug is doing it. So, when we abstain, the brain doesn't immediately start producing it on it's own. It takes time, and it is the cause of the specific withdrawal symptoms.
 
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